


suicide hotline

by corvinephan



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Blood, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 09:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20690891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvinephan/pseuds/corvinephan
Summary: Dan wants to die. Phil talks him through it.





	suicide hotline

**Author's Note:**

> This fic gets quite graphic at some points, so please check the tags before reading. That being said, it's not actually a very angsty piece, and it has a hopeful ending. It is also my first fic for the phandomficfests AND the first fic about dnp that I've decided to publish. I hope you enjoy it. 
> 
> Thank you to the wonderful @outphan on tumblr, who beta'd this fic and helped make it actually readable. They also gave me some awesome feedback, so go give them some love!

"Hello?"

Phil could hear quiet sobs coming from the receiver.

"Hello? Can I help you? Take a deep breath."

The line went quiet for a second before the caller breathed in and let it out in broken exhales.

"Hi."

Relieved to have gotten a response, Phil launched into his standard dialogue, trying to coax the person on the other end of the line into giving him some information to work with.

"Tell me what's wrong. Are you safe?"

"I'm-" the caller was interrupted by his voice cracking. A few hiccups later, he managed to get out a full sentence. "I'm Dan. I want to die. You're supposed to help me stop, but I'm not sure I want to."He stopped briefly."I'd say I'm a danger to myself, but that would make you call the police, wouldn't it?"

Phil thought for a second. He knew that was what he was supposed to do, but couldn’t help but feel like there was another way.

Phil was suddenly struck with how fucked up the whole scenario was. As much as the boy on the other end, as much as Dan was not okay, his voice was obscenely calm when he said it. His serenity in the face of death deeply disturbed Phil, but he promised himself that he could do this. He swallowed his own emotions threatening to come through and spoke.

"I won't call them." he said, a whisper more than anything."I won't do anything unless you want me to. But Dan, I believe you can do this."Tell me why you want to die."

Dan snorted."Well it's easy, isn't it? It's fairly simple." he cleared his voice slightly. "I just don't want to live anymore."

He laughed, but the laughter dissolved into sobs again. He was cycling through emotions so fast that Phil wasn't sure how he would react to anything. He was afraid of setting something off that he couldn't control.

"It's awfully sad, how I have to take help from a stranger because no one wants to be around me anymore. You can’t help me if you're not here," Dan said.

Phil wasn't sure he could, either. He spoke in bursts, pausing to get his words.

"I can try."

"Please listen."

"Your mental illness isn't who you are. It is the one that alienates the people you love. I know you feel this immense guilt, but you've got to let it go. As much as we pride ourselves as rational beings, we really are slaves to our emotions. And it just happens that yours are more intense than most people's. And that's okay. You can learn to work through that."

"Are you still there?"

"I am," Dan said.

"Good. So."

"It goes like this. You need to tell me what you're doing right now. You are safe, I promise."

"Not from myself," Dan mumbled.

"I am playing with my knife. It's full of blood. I guess I'm just smearing it around my arm. Seeing it calms me."

Phil's breath picked up. This couldn't be happening.

"This isn't how I usually talk dirty on the phone." Dan joked. Phil had a hard time finding it funny.

"Please stop that." as much as he tried to hide it, the distress in his voice was obvious. "Put the knife down and tell me how deep the cuts are."

Dan was visibly subdued by his worry, but he also felt irrationally hurt by the lack of a favorable response to his joke. "Typical," he told himself. "I find a way to get rejected even when I attempt suicide".

"Hah... I guess that didn't work. My cuts aren't deep, I'm too scared to do this properly. You didn’t tell me your name." Dan said, changing the subject suddenly.

"It's Phil. I'm Phil. Killing yourself isn't an act of courage."

"I've heard this before. I didn't call here to be called a coward."

Phil was silenced by that.

"I-….I didn't say that. I don't think that. Killing yourself is morally grey, as I see it. It's your life, you get to choose how you live it. Or whether you live it at all." Phil said.

"So why do you work for an anti-suicide hotline? Isn't that kind of picking a side? If you think that this is a moral question that has no real answer, why do you have this job?"

Phil's lips curved despite himself.

"Well, I don't do this job to be deemed a good person. Somehow these two ideas can coexist, that I want you to live, but you can choose not to if you want and it wouldn't be wrong. But I wouldn't like that." he continued. Tell me the reasons, if you want. It might help to say it to someone."

"Yeah, I know…I-"

"I can say it, c'mon" He whispered, taking in a shaky breath.

"…I'm gay. There we go, I said it. And life is…Well, life is bad. Everyone hates me for it. I disgust them, and I can’t blame them for it. I hate this part of myself. This isn’t who I want to be. I wish God would just make me straight and be done with it." His voice was wavering slightly.

"Life was easier when I thought I liked girls. I felt like I could joke around with my friends and I didn't feel like I was living in a plastic bubble like I do now, with my air about to run out any second."

"The things I could do back then…I could play truth or dare without the fear that I'll out myself, I could kiss girls and justify not liking it by saying that we’re too young, or girls have cooties. But now suddenly girls aren't supposed to have cooties, they don't have cooties for anyone else. Except for me."

Phil smiled.

"I'm going to tell you a secret. I'm gay as well." It came way more easily for Phil, who remembers saying it countless times until it almost seemed meaningless. "And I believe life for you can become better. It did for me."

"So listen. Even with all the horrible things happening in the world right now, there is a very real chance that your life will take a turn for the better. We hear a lot that life has ups and downs, but maybe it's easier to visualize them as waves. They roll and roll over the shore that is the present, and, truth be told, you can't stop them. They get thinner and thinner as the storm passes, but they never truly go away for anyone. Even a lake has tremors."

"Things won't suddenly get better. Time is the cure for all ailments. So even if, right now, you feel like that knife is your only friend, believe me when I say that there are people out there made especially for you, who will get you and with whom you'll find that spark that you feel is missing."

"And you'll be that same person to them."

The sniffles on the other end of the line had stopped, and Phil was afraid that Dan had fallen asleep. But then his voice picked up and he said:

"Thank you."

Phil felt like he had talked too much. He felt raw and wrong for this position and he was sure now that this job wasn't for him. But Dan was calm and that was all that mattered.

"Please stay on the line?" Dan said.

"Yeah, for sure."


End file.
